Calculating FOIA Response Times after the 2025 Government Shutdown

As federal employees return to work following the recent lapse in appropriations, OIP is aware that there are questions regarding whether the lapse in appropriations affects how agencies should count the number of days needed to respond to FOIA requests and administrative appeals.  As with previous lapses in funding, when considering how to calculate the number of days used to respond to FOIA requests and administrative appeals for agency Annual FOIA Reports, the following guidance should apply:

Agencies and requesters alike generally refer to the FOIA’s time limits as “working days.”  Logically, then, they may conclude that during a time when FOIA Offices had no choice but to be closed because of the lapse in funding, those days when employees were furloughed were not “working” days and so should not be counted as part of the FOIA’s response times.  However, the FOIA statute only excludes Saturdays, Sundays, and federal holidays from response timelines. Accordingly, and as consistent with agency practice during prior lapses in appropriations, agencies should count as part of their response times for FOIA requests and appeals the twenty-nine days when the government was closed, which excludes all Saturdays, Sundays, and the legal public holidays that occurred during the lapse in appropriations.

As a further clarification, agencies should use the automatically generated received date as the “date received” for electronic communication.  For physical mail, the date on which the mail was physically received by the FOIA office should control.  For most agencies, this means that the “date received” for physical mail will be the date that the government reopened, November 13, 2025.

Our hope and expectation is that requesters will fully understand that even though agencies will be including these shutdown days in their calculations of response times, because FOIA personnel were not able to work during that period, there will necessarily be an impact on processing times.  OIP’s FOIA Counselor Service and Annual FOIA Report Team are available to answer any questions on this guidance or any other topic regarding FOIA administration by calling (202) 514-FOIA (3642).